The pomegranate is a globus fruit surmounted by a crown of calyx lobes. The pomegranate may be as small as an orange or as large as a grapefruit. Pomegranates have a thick though fleshy rind often red in color. Inside the fruit are about 840 tiny juice sacks (arils) each containing a small quantity of sweet red juice. Groups of arils within the core of the fruit are encased by a white membrane similar in texture and sourness to a lemon peel. In its natural state, arils are grouped together and connected by this white membrane forming a pattern within the fruit similar to sections within an orange. The sack of the ariel must be pierced or crushed to remove the juice from its core. The juice from 840 arils amount to approximately 6 fluid ounces. Once collected, the juice may be drunk. The juice of the pomegranate is renowned for its health benefits.
The traditional consumer method of producing juice from this fruit has been to peel the fruit from its crown similar to the way an orange is peeled. Then separate each aril by hand from its membrane and collect the arils to be crushed by a mortar and pestle, or similar device, to produce juice.
Prior art includes the mechanical separation of the arils from the fruit by use of pressurized gas. That method lends itself to the commercial production of pomegranate juice.
Up to the present, no acceptable tool is available for the manual extraction of juice directly from the pomegranate fruit. Prior art for manually actuated tools for the preparation of a citrus juice beverage have been related to orange and grapefruit juice extraction which do not apply to the unique physical characteristics of the pomegranate.